Rice and Soy-Flavored Pork

I am going to have to change the name of this blog to "Cooking Everyday with Harumi" or something if I keep this up. Would you believe she is not even paying me to advertise her book? Guess that shows how much I am liking it!

Last night I made another recipe from the book linked above: Rice and Soy-Flavored Pork (any editing people out there? Should that flavor be capitalized? It looked weird lowercase).

It was a super simple recipe, and very interesting to me. Instead of water, she cooks the rice with dashi (fish stock!) mixed with a little soy sauce, mirin, and sugar. I`d never done something like that before, and the result was intriguing. In the end, I decided that, personally, I would like this recipe better with just plain rice (as the pork and carrots are cooked in a very similarly flavored sauce, and together it seemed a little too much), or perhaps cooked with vegetable or chicken broth instead.

The pork is sliced thinly (she suggested 1cm) and cooked in a fry pan with skinned and sliced carrots in a soy-sauce/mirin/sugar sauce. This sort of sauce is used in a lot of Japanese recipes, I`ve found. I really like the flavor, but do be careful not to cook too long/too high or it will burn. I was impatient last night and burned the sauce a little. It wasn`t disgusting or anything, but it definitely would have been better if I had avoided that.

Harumi gives some good advice on how to slice meat thinly, as well. In Japan, it is easy to find pork and beef sliced as thinly as bacon is. It`s super convenient and delicious. But in America, at least, it is nigh impossible to find it sliced so. Harumi suggests putting the meat in the freezer for a bit-- until it firms up but isn`t frozen through-- and then slicing it. I did this once with a gingersnap cookie recipe and was amazed at the slivers I was able to slice off. Hope this method can help you with your thin-meat needs!!

In any case, it was a simple, tasty meal that I will definitely use again. Perhaps next time, I will add some ginger or garlic to the pork, and use a different liquid for the rice, though.